Have you ever wished you could get the “Windows Recovery Console” running for that one maintenance procedure or program you want to use, without having to remember where you’ve forgotten the CD? HTG explains how to boot WinPE from PXE.

Windows Pre-execution environment (WinPE) is the version of windows that most people know as the one that boots off of the install CD. Over the years, entire projects have been created to give one the ability to have a sort of “Windows Live” environment like many Linux distros. In this guide, we will have the windows PE from the install CD boot from PXE just so we can use it to run the Dell BIOS update utility. You are encouraged to continue the exploration of this bottomless pit of geek goodness…

We are going to do the above, because going the “regular” Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK) way forces you, at best, to install it on your machine and go through a not so straightforward process to mangle the WIM file and its support files into their WDS/RIS form. While Linux alternatives do exists, like the UDA project’s one (which is the PXE server I used before FOG came along), using this way you simply replace some files on the PXE server once (which you probably would have eventually anyhow) and copy the unaltered WIM file and support files directly from the Windows CD into the PXE server.

The one thing to note, is that while it will look like you can start the windows install procedure this way, you actually can’t complete it, and making that possible is beyond the scope of this guide.

Lets get cracking :)

Update PXElinux to V5.01

As of the time of this writing, the version of Syslinux in the Ubuntu repository is still 4.05. I’m guessing this is because the Syslinux team decided to shake things up with the V5 branch and have changed the way their COM32 modules work (now based on ELF) and changed the “core” to require a library (ldlinux.c32) for anything beyond “pure boot”. This makes it very possible to encounter breakage, for anyone who’s used to the “old way”. Don’t fret, we will download the required files manually and make it so your FOG installation doesn’t loose a beat.

Note: it may look like its hanging on the “wim” file, but it isn’t. It is actually transferring the 140MB of a file to the client over TFTP, which takes longer than the usually small files that are transferred this way.

Here is the screenshot to prove that it did happen.

The VM above, was run using VMware-player, had Ubuntu installed on its HD and was PXE booted into WinPE.

Windows Recovery Console

Again, as mentioned in the overview, while it looks like you can start the windows install procedure this way, you actually can’t complete it, and making that possible is beyond the scope of this guide.

With that said, just to give one example of why this would be useful, we will use this environment to perform a Dell BIOS update.

Get the update you need to perform from Dell’s website and put it on a Disk-On-Key. Put the Disk on key and PXE boot the client.

In order to reach the recovery console, in the main window as in the screenshot above, click “Next”.

Click on “Repair your computer”.

Choose “Use recovery tools” and click on “Next”.

Click on “Command Prompt”.

Once in the command prompt, you will have to find out what “drive letter” WinPE decided to designate to your Disk-on-Key. To do this, have the system enumerate all of the currently assigned drive-letters by issuing:

wmic logicaldisk get name

Now excluding the letters A: and X: and perhaps even C: (though its not a given), cycle through the drive letters and look for the Disk-on-Key by issuing:

Driveletter:
dir

Once you’ve found the correct drive, execute the file and you should see something like the below: